In the United States of America George Washington’s Birthday is celebrated as a federal holiday. It is celebrated every third Monday in February in honor of America’s first president. George Washington was born on February 22, 1732. The day can fall on a different day depending on the year it can be on the fifteenth to the twenty first.   All official names include Washington’s Birthday, Presidents’ Day, President’s Day, and Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthday.  The federal holiday honoring Washington was originally implemented by an Act of Congress in 1879 for government offices in Washington  and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices.

Due to the fact that this was the first federal holiday to honor an American president it was originally celebrated on the twenty second of February, which is George Washington’s actual birthday. The holiday was celebrated the same day every year until on January 1, 1971, the federal holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. This was the reason for it being able to be placed on a day between the fifteenth and the twenty first of February. This makes the day slightly less meaningful because the day can not actually fall on Washington’s real birthday. The first time someone tried to make a President’s day was in 1951 when the “President’s Day National Committee” was formed by Harold Fischer from Compton, California, who became its National Executive Director for the next twenty years.

The motive was not to just celebrate the president that was in office but all of the presidents that have been in office. Originally it was thought that March fourth, the original inauguration day should have been presidents day. The bill to recognize the day was stalled when it reached the senate judiciary committee. The board felt that, due to its closeness to Lincoln’s and Washington’s Birthdays, three holidays celebrated so close together would be repetitive. During this time, the Governors of a dominant part of the individual states issued decrees pronouncing March 4 to be Presidents’ Day in their separate jurisdictions.

An early draft of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act would have renamed the occasion to “Presidents’ Day” to respect the birthdays of both Washington and Lincoln, which would clarify why the picked date falls between the two, however this proposition failed in council, and the bill was voted on and marked into law on June 28, 1968, keeping the name as Washington’s Birthday. In the mid 80’s with the help of advertisers the name “Presidents’ Day” had a more public appeal.